Richard Rout – Fort Bicycle Soldier – Remembers Dear Old Missoula Fondly – 1898
Richard Rout
One of the 25th.
Stationed in Arizona He Longs to be Back in Missoula.
Private Richard Rout of company H of the 25th infantry, which is now stationed in the south-western part of the country, writes the following letter to Ed H. Boos showing how disappointed the boys of the 25th are in not being ordered back to Missoula. Rout was a member of the 25the Infantry Bicycle corps which made the memorable trip from Fort Missoula to St. Louis on bicycles last year:
Fort Huachuca, Ariz., Oct. 12. – Dear Sir: – Here we are back to this country once more after fighting for our country in Cuba. Still the boys of the 25th are not satisfied. We all wanted to go back to dear old Missoula because we did good work in Cuba and wanted to get back to our old station so we could tell our friends the story. The 25th is scattered everywhere in Arizona with headquarters at Fort Logan, California. There are only two of the bicycle corps boys here, Frohman and myself. Frohman was badly wounded in battle. Please remember us to everybody in the Garden City which we shall always look to as the best place on earth. Yours truly,
Richard Rout.
The above letter appeared in The Missoulian on October 19, 1898.
Richard Rout was one of the original 20 Fort Missoula Bicycle Soldiers (Company H – 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps) who rode 1900 miles from Fort Missoula to St. Louis, Missouri in the summer of 1897.
Born in Kentucky in 1861, he originally enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1886, re-enlisted twice and found his way to Ft. Harrison, Mt. in 1896.
In Missoula in 1898, after his mission testing the feasibility of using bicycles for the Army, he was part of a unit that was sent to Cuba. He was then discharged in 1899 at Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
According to his death certificate, Richard Rout died of Hepatitis in Tucson, Arizona in 1905. He was 44 years old and had been employed as a porter. He is buried in Prescott, Arizona. He is profiled at 2 of the sites below.
http://bicyclecorpsriders.blogspot.com/2009/01/pvt-richard-rout.html
http://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/2559
https://www.newspapers.com/image/349085036/?terms=richard%2Brout